


Gods and Monsters

by TheLightAtLastAndAlways



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28642035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLightAtLastAndAlways/pseuds/TheLightAtLastAndAlways
Summary: Uehara Takara is no one's treasure. Except maybe that annoyance Hiroki's, but she'd just as soon he leave her to chase Arashi in peace. But with her eyes fixed only on flash of wings, and the golden-furred fox running recklessly both ahead and behind, she soon finds herself in more danger than she'd ever dreamed. A story about a cat, a fox, a crow and the dog who watches over them as they go; a story of real friendship, and adversity, and resilience.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

Takara cracked open eyelids that felt like they were weighted to peer blearily at her alarm clock. She’d set it outside easy reach as a precaution—she’d planned for how poorly she’d sleep due to anticipation, but she always underestimated just how powerfully miserable it felt to be pulled from too-little sleep. As she lay warm and well-cocooned beneath her blankets, she had a moment of weakness—a treacherous thought that Arashi-kun likely wouldn’t notice if she spent less time on her hair or making certain her clothing was neat and tidy.

In the dark, too early to even pretend at dawn, she thought that maybe no amount of good grooming or restraining herself from pummeling that pest Hiroki in an unladylike fashion would get Arashi-kun to notice her.

 _Don’t be like that_ , she scolded herself. _This will be our first time outside the mountain. It’ll almost be as good as being alone. This is your chance!_

With that thought in mind, she managed to hook a claw over the clock to drag it close enough to silence it without actually getting up, then stretched until she felt less like she was swimming in heavy syrup.

Takara scowled at the face that reflected back at her from the mirror after she’d showered, the sharp eyes and broad fangs and oddly shaped ears not cute at all. Especially for a cat, and a cat without the ability to assume a full beast form at that—which was stupid, because if she had to be from a family of no distinction, she shouldn’t also have to listen to how weird it was that a weaker and well-mingled bloodline had produced an aberration that might as well have been a crossbreed.

She’d been teased endlessly by the other spirits until Akemi had taken her in and become her friend. 

That was a long time ago, though, before she’d been old enough to feel that being the best friend of the prettiest girl at the academy was a burden and not a blessing.

Before…

“Nya,” she taunted herself to turn her thoughts away from that unhappy train of thought, sticking out her tongue as she pinned back her bangs and went through the familiar motions of her self-care routine. Her eyes were naturally rimmed in black, prettily off-setting their green color, but her long black hair had to be set carefully to maintain her side-swept bangs and intentionally messy bun neatly.

For at least a little while—she hadn’t yet found a secret to make herself immune to wind and sweat, short of illusion, and while there had been short courses at the academy meant to teach female spirits how to fight like they were dancing and look alluring even while dying, it would have taken her far more than those courses to command that sort of grace. 

So mostly she tried not to sweat when Arashi-kun might be watching.

While still managing to snatch the position of first among the female students out of the grasping clutches of her competitors, many of whom came from much better families and stronger bloodlines.

Thinking about that always made her feel better, and she could pretend now that it hadn’t been hard at all, though there had been days so dark during that she thought she hated Arashi-kun as much as she wanted to claim him.

She gathered her pack from beside her desk and made her way downstairs. Usually she abstained from breakfast, to avoid the risk of revisiting it if Komorebi-sensei pushed them too hard, which had the additional benefit of making her feel so miserable she didn’t feel like eating anything altogether. The twist of nerves in her stomach didn’t make her particularly eager to break the habit, but she knew she had a full day of Hiroki ahead of her.

Takara was not an inspired cook, but she hadn’t made herself sick in years, so there was that. 

Once she’d cleaned up and put her dishes away, it only remained to turn off the lights. She’d told the aunt next door who usually took care of both her and the house she’d be leaving on assignment; her mother was assigned to the messenger stations along the border and she saw her even more rarely than she saw her father.

They’d last been home for the first three days of the lunar new year four months ago, just long enough to visit a shrine with her and do a lot of horrified murmuring about her team placement before the house returned to its usual occupancy.

So there was no one to wish her luck or safety on her journey and no reason to linger. The tiger was giving way to the hare as she slid the door shut behind her and locked the gate, the storefronts that surrounded her home just setting out their signs or setting up their displays.

In the steep midground between the shrines and government buildings that crowned the mountain and the vast clan compounds and fields that skirted it, the homes here were modest and the streets narrow. The cedar was dark with age, but everything was scrupulously clean and the grannies who kept order here were obeyed even by otherwise rebellious youths, so the merchant-class neighborhood was a quiet one. 

The Uehara family had never been merchants, but generations of war had kept the branches of their family well-clipped. There had never been the money or the need for one of the walled clan compounds.

Takara was the only member of her generation.

In another family this probably would have resulted in expectations, responsibilities, and restrictions to extreme as to be stifling, but not hers. Her parents had actually been alarmed by her determination to steal a rank that traditionally went to one of the clan girls.

She was so focused on her internal landscape she almost jumped when a small racoon dashed across the road in front of her, but she had enough presence of mind to leap forward and scoop it up before it could scurry far. She returned it to the harried tanuki it belonged to, who traded her a warm taiyaki for the kit. 

“Thanks, Takara-chan. I keep meaning to call on an onmyouji—his brother managed to chew through his binding again and he seems to disappear every time I turn my back. I should probably let you try it,” she said, holding up the kit so that they were eye to eye. The kit looked distinctly sulky, but it was hard to take him seriously as he wriggled, little arms flailing.

“Going hungry for a little while might teach you that there are worse things than being told to pick up your room. Or maybe lend you to an onmyouji, see if you feel just doing your own chores is so terrible. Or next time that Takara-chan has to bring you back,” she said, voice growing more teasing, “I’ll let her keep you as a snack instead of a taiyaki, eh? A chubby little morsel like you.”

With a swirl of smoke, a toddler was pouting as he turned his head defiantly. “Takumi is not snack,” he muttered.

“Is he not?” his mother asked. “Then is Takumi going to go clean his room?”

The scowl deepened to the point where it was practically comic. Then, “Going.”

“Good boy. Remember, children who lie get fed to cats,” she called as he trundled up the stairs.

“What happens if he does try to run again?” Takara asked curiously.

“Oh, my illusion arts are probably up to convincing a toddler he’s being chased by a large cat, but I’ll probably just save the effort and use a switch, if it comes to that. He’d probably be fine if he stayed up here in the residential areas, but what would happen if he wandered into the practice fields or strayed into one of the clan compounds? I need to call over to one of the shops later and see if they can come this afternoon and see about binding him again. Humans must have it so much easier with their children,” she sighed as she dexterously continued setting up her display for the morning.

“But I suppose while they might not have to worry about their toddler escaping along the power line, they have a different set of worries. So much more fragile and dependent! Like raising fussy little orchids. Oh, and here I am rambling. I’m not going to make you late for practice, am I? Here, take these, and share them with your team. Be safe!” She bundled up three more taiyaki despite Takara’s protests and sent her on her way.

Holding the package close to her chest as she continued making her way down the mountain, feeling its faint warmth seep through the paper, Takara considered their mission.

A human had contracted the mountain for the protection of spirits as he returned to his village.

This was among the most common of the requests that Ryukotsukiyama granted and was considered quite low-risk enough to send along a trainee team for field experience. Normally that team would have worked together for at least a year, to build both practical skills and comradery outside the academy, but Hiroki was both annoying persistent and treated with a strange kind of deferent tolerance by the adults.

So, within four months of graduating from the academy, here they were.

She still hadn’t decided whether she wanted to be appalled or grudgingly grateful.

Takara arrived first at the rendezvous point that Komorebi-sensei had set, but she usually did—once she was properly awake, she’d rather hoard moments when it was only she and Arashi-kun than do almost anything else and these early mornings were almost as good as dreams anyway. Her feathered object of affection was bad with mornings and did little that might break the narratives she built in her mind. 

She heard the sound of his wings before she could pick him out in the sky as an absence of stars, then he was silhouetted elegantly against the rising light. Glossy feathers caught that light in a cascade of purples and greens and blues, the wind from his flight catching at her hair, the whole of it making her heart stutter like she’d just been doing sprint intervals.

Folding his wings neatly away, he gave her a curt nod of acknowledgement. Adolescence had already stripped away most of the roundness of his face, though he hadn’t begun to outstrip her in height. The angle and shape of his moonsilver eyes were elegant and his bangs hung in asymmetric long spikes—almost more feather than hair—across his forehead, shorn short in the back and tufting up like a bird in the cold. 

Every time she saw him like this, she was struck by just how gorgeous he was—and she was reassured that he was worth everything she’d had to sacrifice in her single-minded pursuit of him.

Takara carefully sidled closer. He was usually less sensitive to physical proximity when he was sleepy. “Good morning, Arashi-kun,” she greeted him softly. “Would you…like a taiyaki?”

He made an unintelligible noise in reply, eyes sliding nearly shut as he crossed his arms across his chest and relaxed against a nearby building.

Takara bounced gently on her toes as much to keep herself awake as to disguise her slow approach. Perhaps Arashi-kun suffered as much from lack of sleep as she did, because she’d gotten much closer than usual before her ears pricked up at the pounding of feet.

Which meant she was that much more annoyed than usual when she heard the shout. “Taa-kaa-raa!”

Head snapping up, Takara quickly sidestepped the assailant and caught her attacker by the high collar on the back of his coat. “There are people still sleeping,” she hissed through clenched teeth. The paper package safely held in her other hand was the only thing that stopped her from smacking him upside the head.

Hiroku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, but made no effort to regain his footing, content to dangle like a scruffed kitten. “Sorry, I was just excited to see you again, Takara.”

“We saw each other yesterday,” she retorted flatly.

“I know, that’s so long ago, right? I mean, I missed you the whole night.”

“…I’m really going to smack you. What were you trying to do, anyway?”

“Refreshing morning greeting!” Hiroku reported, huge golden-furred tail waggling.

“By way of assault?”

“By a hug! Don’t you like hugs, Takara-chan?” 

“Not coming from you,” Takara replied coldly. “Are you going to stand up?”

“Nah. I like it when you hold me close like this,” Hiroki replied, which immediately made her release his collar.

He landed ably on his feet and sprang back upright, wide sleeves billowing as he laced his hands behind his back. “Good morning, Takara-chan,” he beamed.

“Did you even brush your hair this morning?” she asked suspiciously. He’d knotted his semi-long hair back, but rather than deliberately messy like her own bun, it just looked tangled.

“Nope! I overslept. Could you fix it for me, Takara-chan?”

She weighed her reluctance to encourage Hiroki against making a good impression on the client and sighed. “Did you bring a comb?”

“Yep!” Hiroki said, pulling one out of his sleeve and immediately turning to crouch at her feet, humming happily.

“Here, you’ll have to hold these,” Takara said as she unwrapped the pastries, intending to offer him one, squeaking embarrassingly in surprise when Arashi-kun’s hand brushed hers as he collected one for himself. He murmured something that might have been thanks, but she was entirely distracted by the sensation of his—actually surprisingly cold—skin against hers.

She handed the rest of the snacks to Hiroki and collected his offered comb as she offered, “Go ahead and have one. Komorebi-sensei probably won’t show up for another half hour anyway.”

“Your lack of faith in your sensei saddens me, Takara-chan,” Komorebi-sensei’s voice said, startling her as she was trying to untangle the tie in Hiroki’s hair.

She’d yanked it hard enough it probably hurt, but Hiroki had toppled over onto his butt out of surprise anyway, gaping up at Komorebi-sensei where he sat on a nearby wall.

“Quick, Takara-chan,” he gasped. “Someone’s impersonating sensei!”

“What? That’s silly. And even if they were, what do you want me to do about it?”

“Why _are_ you here already?” Arashi-kun’s deeper voice demanded.

“Because this is when I set the rendezvous.”

“But you’re never on time!” Hiroki protested.

“I’m not going to make the client wait,” Komorebi-sensei replied as he landed easily on the street without so much as a sound.

“But it’s okay to make us wait? No, hold on, you just admitted you were doing it on purpose!”

“Did I?” Komorebi-sensei replied blandly, his expression concealed by the impassive smile of the white porcelain dog mask she’d never seen him without. The last of the taiyaki disappeared within his sleeve almost before she could blink.

Komorebi-sensei was tall and well-built, with a long fall of silver hair and well-shaped erect ears, and though his tail was long-furred she’d never seen him with so much as a single bramble caught in it. His clothing was plain, dark, and close-fitted, though the fan that he was never without was very flashy and almost feminine in its painting. He had it open now, tapping it against his muzzle, and it looked quite ordinary, but having been hit by it once or twice, she was pretty certain that the spines were steel and not wood.

“Go ahead and fix Hiroki’s hair while we’re waiting. Have all of you memorized the map and the details of the request? Yes? No? I’m not going back over behavior expectations outside the mountain.”

Hiroki’s tangles came out easily enough, though that was probably because he probably needed to have washed it before they left, but that was not her business.

“You’re done,” she informed him, tugging gently on one of his sidelocks and handing him back his comb.

“You’re amazing, Takara-chan.”

“If I’d made it to this age without knowing how to comb hair, that would just be sad.”

“Children, behave. Our client is arriving.”

Straightening up, Takara cast a curious glance along the street in the direction that Komorebi-sensei was looking.

A human appeared, younger than she thought he’d be, with a hard set to his mouth and wary eyes. Those eyes swept over them briefly, before settling on Komorebi-sensei.

“Good morning, sir. I’m Hayashi Komorebi. My team has been assigned to your protection until we reach the village of Fukisarashi. We’re ready to go if you are, client-sama,” Komorebi-sensei told him.

“Good morning, Hayashi-san. I’m ready to leave now,” the man—Otsuka Yoshito if she remembered the dossier correctly—replied.

“Hiroki-kun, get his bags.”

“Gotcha, sensei,” Hiroki said enthusiastically, bounding up to the client without any indication of reserve –or professionalism. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was the dog instead of a golden fox.

Otsuka-sama handed over his bags rather skeptically, but he turned and began to walk toward the gates without complaint. Being processed through the gates before they opened officially for the day took a little time, but it was only just fully daylight by the time they put the enormous stone walls of Ryukotsukiyama at their back.


	2. Chapter 2

There were, Takara thought wistfully five days later, endless creative ways to silence a fox when you really thought about it.

She didn’t usually daydream with such single-minded focus when it didn’t involve Arashi-kun, but she was making a special exception. It was bad enough that his endless admiration of _everything_ had grated at her patience all day, but to thoroughly trample on her fantasies the first night she’d shared a room with Arashi-kun? That was defiling sacred ground. He’d talked and talked and talked and kept encroaching with tail all fluffed until she’d shoved him underneath his covers and kept tucking in the edges until he stopped trying to escape.

Thinking about it still made her flush hotly, ears pricking, and she entertained increasingly wild thoughts that ranged from convenient sealing collars to stuffing him in a rice sack and tossing him over the edge of a convenient cliff. That last had been a strange dream after four very long, stressful nights. Hiroki had subsequently gained the ability to fly and then Takara had tossed _herself_ off that cliff and woke to tangled, sweat-soaked covers.

For all that she seethed with violent frustration, she thought Arashi-kun might be the first to really snap.

“If he had half the stamina in training he has with his mouth, he’d be a monster,” he muttered at her side, a muscle in his eyelid twitching as she glanced over at him. For once there was no fluttery excitement at the fact he was talking to her—she felt instead a weary comradery.

“Golden foxes are super rare, right? So we’d be in big trouble if we forgot to collect him the next time we catch him chasing butterflies with children.”

“Komorebi wouldn’t let us do something like that. There’d be a lot of paperwork.”

Takara turned her gaze toward their sensei, who looked as reliable as he ever did—which was to say that as they were walking, he wasn’t sleeping.

“Do you think Otsuka-sama has small children?” she pondered aloud.

“Because of how good he is at ignoring the idiot? I’d say it’s likely,” Arashi-kun replied. 

They fell silent again for a while after that. Takara hadn’t realized just how boring being on assignment would be—in the academy, it was all preparation and awareness and fighting, but so far there had been nothing more dangerous than long exposure to an annoying teammate. All the waiting made it difficult to maintain any real degree of situational awareness, especially as Hiroki’s chattering was louder than the birds and made her wish for human-dim hearing.

She was trying, however, which meant she couldn’t really chat with Arashi-kun to pass the time—not that she could imagine what five days of conversation flowing like a river between her and the object of her affection would even sound like.

It wasn’t that she had no idea of his interests and hobbies, she had been hunting—no, that was a strange way to say it—watching, no that was still odd—she had been interested in him for long enough that she’d thoroughly educated herself on the things he found interesting. But even those things didn’t make him much of a conversationalist.

That was a charm point, though!

There was more value in winning the favor of someone who didn’t give it easily.

After five days of walking at a human pace, they’d finally reached the border of Jukai. It was expensive to ask a spirit to bear a human on its back because of the indignity and human laws and custom made it difficult for common men to ride normal beasts or be conveyed in wagons or carriages pulled by them, but Takara hadn’t realized just how slow this made everything.

Chosekiuta was a long, narrow province that bordered the coast—Otsuka Yoshito hailed from a chain of islands that fell loosely under their governance.

Far more densely populated than their own province, it had at first been exiting to follow the roads through the lively market towns, but Takara soon found she had underestimated the strength of an unshaded sun as the forests thinned and gave way to grasslands. The breeze off the sea as they drew closer to the coast brought some relief, but her first glimpse of the light reflecting off the water had her squinting, the movement making her peeling nose sting.

The sea was still a long way away, though, days of human-slow travel, but Takura thought the view of it from the cliffs that fell away into flat farmland was more spectacular than standing on the beach. 

She wanted to sit here and watch the sun sink low and look to her side and see Arashi-kun sublime in the light, his plumage all purples and greens in the gloaming. If he smiled at her as well, she thought she might want to live forever in that moment, but the fantasy was soon shattered by Komorebi-sensei’s voice.

“Takara…”

“Yes, sensei,” Takara sighed. Somehow it had become her responsibility to arrange for rooms once Komorebi-sensei indicated where they’d be staying.

Takara patted at her hair, tugged at her sleeves to straighten her collar, and smoothed her hands over the panels of her skirts. Colorful kumihimo bands bound charcoal black forearm guards that disappeared beneath the wide pale pink sleeves of her kimono style top. Beneath it she wore a sleeveless charcoal top with a high collar and matching shorts that went to the knee. Over her shorts was a pale green skirt cut into panels for free movement with plenty of pouches along her belt for supplies. Colorful anklets matched the kumihimo bands on her arms above soft-soled sandals.

She was a little wilted from traveling all day, but when she was as neat as she was going to get, she stepped inside the inn sensei had indicated and called out greetings to the proprietress as she waited in the genkan.

Most of the places sensei had selected were accustomed to receiving spirit escorts and had rooms set aside for them. This one was no exception, so it took only a very short time before she was retrieving Arashi-kun and Hiroki to secure the room.

Theoretically they were being vigilant against traps or assassins or spies, but all of those had been in short supply on this contract.

Without Komorebi-sensei watching over their shoulder, they had become—well, not negligent exactly, but Hiroki was only shuffling things around half-heartedly and Arashi-kun was glaring at the room at large, which probably meant he was using his family arts.

As for Takara, she was crouched in the center of room, trying—and failing—to sense anything amiss.

She glanced over at Arashi-kun.

“I am absolutely certain there isn’t anyone behind this scroll and the scroll isn’t anyone either, so can we go get Komorebi-sensei and get dinner?” Hiroki asked, though he too was looking to Arashi-kun.

“Ah,” Arashi-kun affirmed after a moment more. “But we’re not eating udon.”

“What? Why? It’s been like three days. And the beauty of noodles is that you can find good udon wherever you go!”

“Having been so many places to become an expert on such things,” Takara drawled, tail flicking.

“Well, all the noodles I’ve eaten outside Ryukotsukiyama have been delicious. But we’ll need to keep trying them if we’re going to make a really informed decision about it!”

“No,” Arashi-kun replied repressively.

“…pleeeease, Takara-chan?”

“It’s gross when you make that face.”

“That’s not nice, Takara-chan. But I know you’re just saying that because you’re embarrassed! You’ve already fallen for this fox’s beauty, but you don’t want to admit it!”

Takara blinked slowly at him. “I take it back, Arashi-kun. Let’s eat udon. The noodle-brain has gone so long without he’s gotten delusional.”

“Success!” Hiroki cheered, clenching both fists in the air in a signal of victory before bouncing toward the door. “You know, Takara-chan, you’re going to be in trouble,” he called behind him.

“Trouble?” she asked as she rose.

“You already can’t resist me to this extent, but I’ll only get better looking with each tail!”

“But will they regrow when I tear them off out of frustration?” she asked as she fell in at Arashi-kun’s shoulder.

“Just think, he’ll gain the ability to form shades of himself with his second tail. Can you imagine nine of him?” Arashi-kun murmured.

Takara winced. “Can we not think about it? I mean, that would take at _least_ a hundred years.”

They squabbled as usual through dinner, delivering Komorebi-sensei and Otsuka-sama’s portions, and it seemed like things would continue like they had been.

Except, when she passed him in the hall that night, sensei murmured, “Start keeping your eyes open properly from here on out.”

“What do you mean, sensei?” she asked, smothering her defensive response and the brief flare of embarrassment that accompanied it.

“There something odd about an engineer that needs an escort back to his homeland. There’s something even stranger for someone who’ll be paying for this mission mostly in human vitality to come as far as Ryukotsukiyama to find that protection, when there are other spirit villages nearer. When people who can’t afford protection pay for it, there’s usually something they need protection from.”

With that, he left her to mull that over as she sat quietly in Otsuka-sama’s room, newly anxious as she hadn’t been for days.


	3. Chapter 3

Takara had never given any particular thought to how disconcerting fog was, but it wasn’t just the way it obscured her sight. It distorted her sense of time, dampened her sense of smell, and _flattened_ sound oddly. It was as if they were disconnected from the real world, stranded on this unfamiliar stretch of road that made her tail prickle.

Even Hiroki was subdued.

This—traveling by night in heavy fog to reach the tiny village where they would catch a barge to his island chain before the fog burned off—was the first real request made by their contractor in terms of travel. It was also the first evidence to really support sensei’s assertion that there was usually a reason that people were willing to pay for protection.

She didn’t hear the sea until they were almost upon it.

When Otsuka-sama had said this was a tiny village, he hadn’t affecting humility on its behalf—there had been a brief thinning of the fog that had exposed perhaps two dozen houses clustered loosely around a long dock where a barge that had all its better days behind it was moored.

Otsuka-sama had been quiet and reserved since they’d offered greetings, so it surprised Takara when he spoke quietly. “There were more.” 

“More?” Takara asked after a long moment. She wasn’t certain whom he’d meant to address, but she happened to be the one flanking him with Arashi-kun, who at this hour was staring fixedly into the fog with the narrow-eyed focus of one determined not to fall asleep on his feet. He was still probably twice the combatant she was, even in that state, but conversation was his weakness at all hours.

“Homes. This was a much bigger village, before.”

“Before what?” Takara asked curiously. There hadn’t been enough houses for this to even count as a village if they many of them were abandoned—but no, she could sense the humans in them.

Otsuka-sama only shook his head and lengthened his stride.

He rapped very softly at the door of one of the houses and, after a few minutes, the door was opened just wide enough for the inhabitant to peer suspiciously at them. It was a woman—a big one, not fat, but massive like very few human men were massive, tall and broad through the shoulders, and there’s a muddy sort of sense to her energy that makes Takara think _crossbreed_ —and she ushered them all inside.

There was another woman waiting, similar enough in looks—and size—to the first that if they weren’t sisters they were cousins.

There were speaking looks exchanged between the three of them before the women rose and wrapped themselves against the damp in shapeless grey coats and woven hats.

The woman who had met them at the door paused before it. “Are you certain you don’t want to wait for a storm?”

“The storm season is tapering off,” Otsuka-sama replied grimly. “We might not get another chance.”

There was unhappiness and resignation writ on the woman’s face as she looked at him, then swept her eyes over the spirits. She didn’t look impressed.

Judging from his body language, neither was Komorebi-sensei.

“I know we’ve already come this far,” he said lackadaisically, “but before we go out over open water, I think that perhaps there needs to be ever so slightly more truth between us. I know everyone jokes about the smell of wet dog, but have you ever smelt wet feathers? If there’s the potential I’ll be fishing a cute little crow out of the sea, I should at least be mentally prepared.”

Arashi-kun glared at their sensei balefully, while Hiroki snickered.

“No?” Komorebi-sensei said after a long moment in which Otsuka-sama seemed to war with himself.

Hiroki left off laughing at Arashi-kun and padded forward earnestly. Takara tried not to flatten her ears when he spoke—most spirits had some degree of resistance to a fox’s charm, especially a compulsion still raw and uncultivated, but she would swear she was allergic to Hiroki’s. “Ne, ojisan, we want to help. But you’ll help us help you if you tell us what you’re afraid of. We’re not afraid of anything!”

“That’s not going to work on me,” Otsuka-sama replied. “I’m married to a fox.”

“What’s not going to work on you?” Hiroki asked. “And that’s so cool, ojisan! What color is she? How many tails does she have?”

Otsuka-sama sighed. “Three. And she’s an island fox.”

“So you’re going back to her?” Hiroki asked. “Was someone keeping you apart? Oh! Does someone have her locked up somewhere and you’re coming back to rescue her?”

Sensei glanced down at his student. “What sort of tepid melodrama are you writing?” he asked.

“Hey, that plot comes up _all_ the time on the daytime dramas and those free novels that the library leaves on tables for poor, unsuspecting souls.”

 _If you keep picking them up, do you still count as unsuspecting?_ Takara thought as her mind conjured images of her teammate flopped belly-down on his bed, tail waggling as he read the sort of trash that entertained middle-aged housewives.

She was only _slightly_ jealous. She’d mostly had to read things like chi charts and maths workbooks and survival manuals these last few years because the other girls hadn’t been willing to hand Arashi-kun over without a fight and _everyone_ had known they’d have to rank first to make it onto his team.

Takara could have done without Hiroki, but even if his test scores were abysmal and his magic more than a mess, he was a golden fox.

While she’d been following the trail of her thoughts like this, Hiroki had been spinning increasingly unlikely scenarios about just what they could potentially face on their way to Fukisarashi.

“By all the gods,” the first woman scowled. “Tell them or I will, just to shut him up.”

Otsuka-sama frowned and then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Four years ago, an onmyouji came to the islands. Due to their geography, they accrue an unusual amount of energy that onmyouji and spirits both find useful for their meditation. My wife tells me that hosting such guests has long been one of the major livelihoods of those who live on the islands.”

“You haven’t lived there long?” Komorebi-sensei asked.

“Seven years. The islands are volcanic and young. There isn’t much soil that can support the kind of things that humans can eat, so they’ve always been reliant on fishing and trade with the mainland. Ships are in their souls, so people and goods have always come and gone like the ebb and flow of the tide.”

“But Shuichi didn’t come to be a tourist,” the first woman said flatly. “He came to be lord of the islands.”

“When he came,” the second woman said, picking up the tale, “he burned this village first. Or, rather, his spirits did. I’d never seen an onmyouji with so many shikigami.”

“He burned this village, then when he crossed the water, he burned all but the smallest fishing vessels, effectively trapping those on the islands. Attempts to overthrow him from within have been fruitless and attempts to overthrow him from without have largely been stifled as those sent to gather aid have disappeared.”

“But you made it all the way to Ryukotsukiyama,” Hiroki pointed out. 

“After living like a dead man for a year and then spending the next two making arrangements. You’re bringing me home to Fukisarashi for the first time in three years.”

Hiroki gaped, Arashi-kun’s brows rose, and Takara’s ears swiveled forward in surprise.

“Three years?!” Hiroki blurted.

Otsuka-sama wore a faint, hard smile. “It took us almost a year to discover that Shuichi had used the uninhabitable rock formations littering the sea to create an array that’s as good as a castle wall and as sensitive as a spider’s web.”

“And all of this is very interesting, but I’m still not hearing the reason why this wasn’t contracted as an assassin—,” Komorebi-sensei tilted his head then, thoughtfully. “This array. Sensitive to intent?”

A grim nod from the engineer. “If you’re here to protect me, we can pass through without a problem. If you’re here to kill Shuichi…”

“Along comes the spider,” sensei finished.

“We have to help them, sensei!” Hiroki insisted.

Takara shifted nervously, knowing that the significant misrepresentation of the threat was enough for Komorebi-sensei to declare the contract void and leave Otsuka-sama unprotected after collecting a bad faith penalty that would strip _years_ from the human’s lifespan.

Her eyes dart to Arashi-kun and he looks _invested_ in a way he hadn’t on the long peaceful days leading to this.

 _He thrives in the storm_ , she thought to herself, heart beating faster with something beyond anxiety and some part of her began to believe that maybe they could do this.

Even if the rational part of her mind reminded her that the academy taught you to read and do higher maths and basic martial arts and energy manipulations. It was not intended to make you capable of liberating island chains from powerful onmyouji immediately after graduation.

Takara was not brave enough to say so, though. 

“We’ve been using this storm season to move materials in secret to the islands. Once I arrive to begin supervision of the work, I estimate it will take us less than a fortnight to complete my bridge. The structure will destabilize the array and it will collapse. After that…,” his hands flexed into fists and then relaxed. “After that we’ll be free.”

Sensei hummed thoughtfully. “The three of you _can_ swim, yes?” he asked.

“Not at all!” Hiroki volunteered cheerfully, thrusting his hand up into the air.

“Liar,” Arashi-kun muttered. “We all remember that week last summer when you kept lurking in the pond and yanking people under by their ankles.”

“But I can hold my breath for a _reeeeaaally_ long time!” Hiroki amended with his hand still in the air.

“I vaguely recall swimming being a mandatory requirement.” Komorebi-sensei said leadingly.

“The academy instructors said if I hadn’t managed to drown myself while trying to drown everyone else, I could probably swim enough to count.”

Sensei sighed then.

“Just kidding, sensei. I can swim just fine.”

Takara hardly saw the fan move, but Hiroki was soon scowling and clutching at his head.

“Well, now that I won’t feel guilty if this one drowns, I suppose you still have yourself an escort.”

“When I’m Yama-no-kami, I’m going to ban people smacking me on the head,” Hiroki muttered. “Ah! Except you, Takara-chan! You can have a special exemption.”

“You do that, kid,” sensei replied.

He asked some other leading questions as they made their way down to the barge, but before he allowed them to even step foot on the deck he ordered them—with his gaze fixed especially on Hiroki—to be silent.

Sound carried over water.

They shoved off without so much as the sound of paddles, the two women moving to kneel fore-and-aft with one hand trailing in the water. Whatever it was they were crossed with—and there was nothing exactly wrong with being a cross except they couldn’t use human onmyoudo at all and their abilities from their spirit side were usually stunted, and when they weren’t, they tended to be overwhelming to the point of sweeping them onto paths of demonic cultivation as instincts overrode reason—had given them some sort of limited water manipulation that propelled them forward into the fog with only silent ripples marking their passing.

There was one more aspect of the fog that she hadn’t taken into account when they were walking—it was _cold_ as it settled on bare skin and seeped into her clothes and fur.

Takara resisted the urge to rub her arms briskly for warmth and instead focused on watching the water bead and drip from Arashi-kun’s hair as she tried sense anything amiss in the mist.

She remembered her grandmother telling her _a cat’s whiskers are sensitive enough to read every shift in the air_ as she coaxed her through the only real legacy that her family had to pass on.

Well, that and her mother’s earnest advice when she’d started looking at boys as something more than smellier classmates— _marry a man from a bird clan, daughter mine, because most of them mate for life and_ _laying eggs is a lot less stressful than live birth._


End file.
